From Image Journal
The Myth of Independent Film
By Craig Detweiler
College roommates turned filmmakers Craig Detweiler and John Marks
It started with a phone call.
“Sweet D, I’m coming to California. I want to interview you for my new book.” Nobody ever called me “Sweet” except my Davidson College roommate, John Marks. Evidently he was on the prowl, in search of his next story. I was intrigued.
“Why me?” I asked him.
“Because you were the witness. You were the last person who knew me when I still had faith.”
“True. But why now, after all this time?”
“I need to understand what happened. Where it went. I’m going to tape our interview. We need a whole day. To talk about everything.”
John wanted to retrace his journey from faith to doubt, to restart our conversation about life and God that drifted off when we graduated. As sophomores, we had been united by fervent commitments to Bruce Springsteen, John Wayne, and Jesus Christ. We exchanged favorite songs and scripture passages, and around midnight, our room sounded like a honky-tonk revival tent. But skepticism swept across John’s junior year abroad in Marburg, Germany, and he came back to campus a changed man…
